Texas General Land Office’s Coastal Management Program Awards Grant to Texas A&M University at Galveston
The $2,372,027.00 grant will fund Phase II of a joint project exploring restoration strategies for portions of the Texas coast
Texas Land Commissioner, Dr. Dawn Buckingham, presented Texas A&M University at Galveston and their partner, University of Texas at Arlington, a check for $2,372,027.00 during a ceremony on March 19, 2026.
The check provides funding for Phase II of a Texas General Land Office’s Coastal Management Program Project of Special Merit to identify restoration strategies addressing stakeholder concerns in the coastal region of Texas stretching from East Matagorda Bay to Freeport.
For Phase I, Texas A&M University at Galveston received around $200,000 total, for Phase II, Texas A&M University at Galveston will be receiving around $1.4 million.
Dr. Timothy Dellapenna, Professor, Department of Marine and Coastal Environmental Science, College of Marine Science and Maritime Studies, Texas A&M University at Galveston serves as a co- Principal Investigator (PI) and Texas A&M University at Galveston lead. Dr. Ashley Ross, associate professor of Marine and Coastal Environmental Science, Texas A&M University at Galveston is also on the project. Dr. Yu Zhang, Dept of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington serves as the Lead PI.
Phase I of the project, which concluded in February 2026, yielded a foundational regional modeling system, sediment and bathymetric data, and potential management strategies. The Phase II project will collect critical flow/sediment data to aid concurrent modeling efforts and evaluate and refine candidate infrastructure measures to lay the ground for their conjunctive implementation.
“Phase II will build on lessons learned from Phase I. We will be investigating the feasibility of mining sand from the lower Brazos River as well as the submarine portion of the Brazos Delta. We will also be investigating the factors that are causing erosion of Sargent Beach, which extends from the western end of the Cedar Lakes to 10 miles to the west,” Dr. Dellapenna said. “Sargent Beach has the Gulf Coast Intercoastal Waterway (GCIWW) running along its north side, is the most rapidly eroding section of the Texas coast and in places is only 250 feet wide. If breached, the GICWW will be compromised. The GICWW allows for the transit of around 80 million tons of goods, worth over $50 Billion, so the loss of the GICWW would be detrimental to the economy of Texas.”
When thinking of the time to fix the issues before changes are irreversible as being finite like the sand in an hourglass, it is fitting that one of the main areas of focus centers on sand. Identifying new sand sources in the lower Brazos enables sustainable sand mining for nourishing beaches in the region and beyond, while supporting tourism and related economic activities in Matagorda County. The new sand sources, if verified and exploited, provide a renewable supplement that helps counter the threats to critical infrastructure along the coast.
To find solutions to the problems created in part by engineering projects that changed the flow of water in the 20th Century, the project includes concerted field campaigns and modeling experiments that will fill major regional data gaps and produce a clearer, holistic understanding of flow connectivity and sediment dynamics along the Brazos River, GCIWW west of the Brazos River Flood Gate (BRFG), the San Bernard River, Caney Creek, and along the Gulf of Mexico.
Contributing to the issue is the GICWW. Opened in 1948, the GICWW created a pathway for flood waters from the Brazos River to enter the Cedar Lakes. The Cedar Lakes are rapidly filling with sediment derived from the Brazos River.
The Cedar Lakes, a series of coastal lakes found on the west side of the Brazos Delta, are part of the San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge and are an important coastal habitat and ecosystem, popular with both sportfishing as well as waterfowl hunting. In 1929, the mouth of the Brazos River was moved west 6 miles to its current position, which is 3.5 miles east of the mouth of the San Bernard.
“Once the mouth of the Brazos River was moved, the Brazos Delta started growing and migrated westward until, it closed mouth of the San Bernard River in 2006” said Dr. Dellapenna. “The mouth has been dredged open three times but continues to close. When the river mouth is closed, communities along the lower San Bernard River flood when the river floods.”
Working in tangent, Texas A&M University at Galveston and the University of Texas at Arlington will perform the following four tasks:
- Collect sediment core and bathymetric data from the Brazos River mouth to Cedar Cut
- Configure of coupled hydrologic-hydrodynamic and sediment transport models for the region
- Assess freshwater inflows along San Bernard River during floods
- Perform scenario analysis for flooding, sediment, and San Bernard River mouth stability.
The threats arising from changes along the coast have prompted regional communities to seek intervention strategies. Some of the strategies that either have been, or about to be, implemented include dredging of San Bernard inlet, construction of breakwaters along Sargent Beach, and nourishing Sargent Beach using dredged materials from the lower Colorado and San Bernard.
Interventions aimed at addressing a local issue may have unintended consequences for other parts of the region. For example, after dredging in 2022 the San Bernard River inlet closed within a year. Finding solutions that work for communities both upstream and downstream is at the heart of the research. The project is expected to run for about three years.
